


Feel So Much Spring

by royal_chandler



Series: Doctor Tozier [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, Hospitals, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mild Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23257855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royal_chandler/pseuds/royal_chandler
Summary: Eddie smiles and Richie mirrors it. The moment rings big and important. Loud. A secret Eddie’s heard of and is finally being let in on. Eddie wonders if Richie is feeling what Eddie’s seeing, that everything around them has been snuffed out for this good thing to grow. That it’s just them here, buzzing like neon. Eddie feels unburied and alive.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Doctor Tozier [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802410
Comments: 72
Kudos: 341





	Feel So Much Spring

**Author's Note:**

> I never intended to write Reddie but here we are. I'm no less a sucker for these two six months in.
> 
> The title for this fic is borrowed from a track of the same name (well it's actually "*I* Feel So Much Spring") that features in the musical, [A New Brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Brain). There's a video of the full show on youtube starring the spectacular Jonathan Groff. It's a highly recommended joy.
> 
> I don't pretend to be an expert on medicine. I've just been binging a lot of ER recently and I'm in my 15th year of Grey's Anatomy school so forgive me any inaccuracies. Also typos because this is unbeta'd.
> 
> Thanks to [stitchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy) for giving this a read-through! And much appreciation to my big sister, a surgical PA who giddily answered an email of my first draft and questions at 5 in the morning.

University Hospital’s ER is packed on a Friday night, loud with the cries of children and hacking coughs. The desk clerk at reception lets Eddie know it’ll be a bit of a wait before he can be attended to and the next available doctor will see him as soon as possible. So, naturally, Eddie expects to be there all night and takes the proffered clipboard and pen with a placid smile.

He’s sat down in the waiting room when he realizes that it’s his dominant hand that is sliced open and he can’t actually fill out the paperwork. Sighing in frustration, he makes to go back to reception and find out if he can get some assistance which is apparently the bat-signal for a complete stranger to approach and drop into the empty seat beside him. The guy is wide-shouldered and steals space from Eddie, long in old jeans and an aquamarine button-down that’s patterned with pineapples in sunglasses. Eddie regards him for a moment longer and spots a bright pink watch. From the large frames to the street-beaten converses, the whole of him kind of hurts to look at. And then he has the audacity to immediately start _talking._

“Need help with that?” The guy asks, nodding at the clipboard.

Eddie blinks at him, momentarily startled, and then snorts. “Yeah, absolutely not. I’ve got it, thanks.”

“Oh, do you? Because your injury says you’re lying.”

“Well shit. How do you think I can teach it to say ‘fuck off, numbnuts’?”

The guy’s laugh takes Eddie by surprise. It’s made up of climbing giggles and eye creases, shakes his shoulders and shows off his overbite. It’s a nice laugh. A nasally, high-pitched goose honk but nice. Delighted. Eddie decides that he likes it.

It’s still new, embracing these appreciations he has for men. But it’s the easy part. Coming to the realization that he’s gay at thirty-nine, Eddie had felt like overdue flower that sprouted in winter moreso than a late bloomer. Unburied but significantly behind the curve. It’s a new world. Navigating dating apps, wondering if that extra glint in the barista’s cheerful demeanor is you-specific or a performance, co-workers insisting you meet their cousin who you’d be great with only for said cousin to pick up a guy while you’re buying whiskey sours at the bar. Being so particular, prickly, and nauseatingly green that no one wants you around for more than one date if that. Living without a partner for the first time in ten years and discovering that’s been a truth of your life far longer than the separation.

So, yeah, Eddie allows himself to find this guy’s laugh attractive because even if it’s easy, it’s still leaps from where he was a year ago and that’s something. At this rate, he might actually be able to land a date in 2017. 

“Okay, okay. Screw me for trying to be a good samaritan,” the guy is saying after he’s done laughing, hands thrown up in surrender. He gives a bright and crooked smile with more freedom than Eddie ever has. And that’s nice, too. Better than nice. He’s gorgeous. 

“Here.” Eddie tells himself he’s only relenting because he can’t spy a health professional who isn’t clearly frazzled and/or without a minimum of three charts in hand. He holds the clipboard out. “Go ahead. Take it.”

“Uh, that was super easy. I was expecting a little bit more resistance.”

“Obviously my common sense has seceded from the rest of me. And I figure what the hell, there are two armed guards at the door. You act shifty and I’ll just sic them on you.”

“I don’t know, man.” Richie cranes his neck in the direction of the entrance doors where security stands sentry. “I think I could beat them out of here.”

“Then I’ll slap Ace Ventura on some wanted flyers.”

“Oh, it’s like that?”

“It’s like that.”

“You’re kind of a dick.” But the corner of Richie’s mouth stays upticked as he taps the clipboard with the ballpoint. “Alright, pop quiz. Number one, what’s your name?”

“Edward Kaspbrak. K-A-S-P-B-R-A-K.”

“Good to know you, Kaspbrak. Richie Tozier at your service. Question number two, on what day did you bless the universe with your existence?”

“March 6th, 1976.” Suddenly, Eddie is the focus of odd, uncut bewilderment. He shifts uncomfortably under it. “Wow. You actually have a silent mode. What’s wrong?”

“We’re nearly birthday twins,” Richie says. “I mean, I’m a tall drink of water and you’re five-foot-six hard times—”

“Five-foot-nine,” Eddie interrupts, scowling. 

“—but crazy enough, I’m March 7th. Same year,” Richie finishes. 

Something occurs to Eddie. “Sorry but I’m going to need you to prove it.”

As though Eddie’s wishes are his command, Richie doesn’t hesitate to dig his wallet out of his pocket and withdraw his license. He presents it with a flourish and summons the voice of an old-school nighttime drama lawyer with great zeal, the accent a molasses-thick drawl. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I draw your attention to exhibit A.”

Eddie snatches the license out of his hand when it gets close enough. Funnily enough, the date actually checks out. He shrugs and pockets it. “Collateral,” he explains.

“Cute and smart. What’s your address, Eds?”

“It’s Edward.” The response is automatic, on loan from his stiff nine-to-five and even more dead personal life. “Or Eddie.”

Another grin is effortlessly served. “What’s your address, Eddie?”

“16 West 75th Street,” Eddie answers.

“16 West 75th Street,” Richie echoes, stretching it out like a kid fooling around with chewed gum. “Noted.”

Eddie peers at him doubtfully. “You’re not memorizing any of this, right?”

With a soft laugh, Richie murmurs, “Nah, I’m sparing the room for your phone number. Which coincidentally is next up. Spill them digits.”

Eddie rattles off his number and social, lists his shortened allergies, bullets his medical history, and uses his mom’s sister for an emergency contact. He hands over his Blue Cross and Blue Shield card when Richie asks for his insurance information because it’s less hassle. 

“Alright. This final question is for all of the marbles,” Richie starts theatrically. “How did you hurt your hand? Also, are you experiencing any tingling? Feelings of numbness? Difficulty moving?” 

“My ninety dollar electric can opener crapped out on me.” Eddie doesn’t remember seeing the last three questions when he’d briefly looked over the form but he answers them all with a negative.

“Hell I pegged you as Wall Street based on the haircut and perfectly rolled up shirt sleeves but a ninety dollar can opener.” Still writing, Richie finishes the sentence with a whistle and shake of the head. 

“It was on my wedding registry for Williams-Sonoma.”

“Oh. I, uh—sorry, dude. For the,” Richie gestures between them with the insurance card, then gives it back awkwardly. “All done, by the way.”

“Thank you.” Eddie fits it back into his wallet. “I got the opener in the divorce.”

“Sorry?” Richie offers, visibly wincing. 

“No. It needed to happen and it’s been over a year now. You assumed correctly.” Eddie flushes warmly. His face feels like he’s spent a long afternoon out in the sun with no protection. He clears his throat and motions with his hand inelegantly. “Anyway, it died so I used my manual to open up some tomatoes and when I was fishing the aluminum out it.” Shrugging, “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying enough attention, I guess. It was painless until it wasn’t. Before I knew it, my hand was gushing. So I grabbed the cheesecloth and—”

“Cheesecloth?”

“I was in the kitchen in the middle of making dinner, asshole. It was within self-preservation range.” Eddie points an accusatory finger. “Don’t hate on the cheesecloth. They’re thick and absorbent. Sturdy. Dependable.”

“I’m debating whether you’re my reincarnated grandmother or a paid advertisement. Leaning toward the ad, though. You’re like a commercial featuring an angry cartoon chipmunk.” Richie adapts an admittedly spot on Alvin, albeit with a decidedly feral flavor. “Do you enjoy trapezing through the fast lane? Who doesn’t? But don’t get caught without a little insurance! Band-aids? Forget ‘em. First-aid kit? Ditch it. Use cheesecloths. They’re thick, absorbent, _and_ dependable. Get your cheesecloths at your local grocer now!”

“You’re a riot.” Eddie says, hoping that his sarcasm has swallowed an encouraging grin. “God what cursed idiot gave you the impression that you’re funny?”

“I’ll stick with my day job then,” Richie says before getting to his feet.

Eddie is a spectacular failure at this. Hastily, “I was joking. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t.” Lit up with amusement, Richie waves the clipboard. “Just thought I’d be gentlemanly and drop this off for you. I’ll be back in a jif, Eds.”

Eddie lets Richie and the nickname go. He lets himself watch Richie walk back and catch him staring.

“So tomatoes for dinner, huh?” Richie begins once he’s sitting down again. Picking up conversation like they never left off. He’s leaning in closer, stealing more space with shoulders and charm, placing weight on Eddie’s chair. “Commonly used in Italian dishes. Spicy sauces that get decadently poured over a really hot, tasty pasta. What do they call that maneuver where you twirl the fork in the spoon? Is that forking or spooning?”

“Those are colloquialisms. Noodling is the technical term, actually,” Eddie says within the small distance between them. “It’s in the Oxford Dictionary.”

“Ah! Well my last read of that beast was more of a skim-through. My point is that an astute individual may notice the opportunity for a pun here, Eddie.”

“Please don’t. Don’t do this. You’re better than this.”

“According to you, I’m not!”

“I was joking!”

“You were joking,” Riche mouths back, teasing and all sketch comedy.

Eddie smiles and Richie mirrors it. The moment rings big and important. Loud. A secret Eddie’s heard of and is finally being let in on. Eddie wonders if Richie is feeling what Eddie’s seeing, that everything around them has been snuffed out for this good thing to grow. That it’s just them here, buzzing like neon. Eddie feels unburied and alive.

They pile what feels like hours with playful back and forth and when it’s severed by an eruption down a hallway, monitors beeping and setting off members of the staff like a starter pistol, it only feels like seconds. Quickly, distressingly, Eddie remembers that he’s in a hospital. He’s yanked out of the glass-wrapped moment and sling-shot back to the age of six, his mind traveling the well-worn manic warnings his mother would feed him on death and disease.

He wonders how long it’d take for his cut to become infected, to fester. To take his right hand, maybe his entire arm. 

Distantly, heart thumping wild and his body spooled with tension, Eddie voices, “Any idea what the wait time’s been?”

Richie blinks and checks his phone. “About a half hour, I think? Chest pain or symptoms of stroke typically take priority in an emergency room. Gunshot wounds too but I haven’t spotted one yet,” he adds lightly. 

Eddie sucks in a deep breath and tries to release it steadily, slow down the panicky pulse that’s tattooing footfalls on his ribs. Richie’s watching him carefully, he knows. Eddie is painfully aware of how neurotic he must look. Like a basket case best kept on the shelf and passed over. 

However, Richie takes him, chooses to grasp him gently by the hand. He stays. “Are you alright?”

“I just remembered that I’m not a fan of hospitals,” Eddie says. His aim for causal comes nowhere close.

“I’ll handle it.”

“What does that mean? You don’t have to—it’s fine. I don’t want to cause a scene.”

“Bullshit. I have a sixth sense about these things, Eds. You’ve got let-me-speak-to-the-manager soccer mom written all over you,” Richie replies in a conspiratorial whisper like they’re schoolyard buddies, achingly close. Too soon he’s Pac-Manning through the maze of the waiting area. 

This time Richie clears reception and gets through the second set of doors. What follows is an animated exchange between Richie and someone in a white coat. It’s immediately obvious that this isn’t their first interaction, they’re friendly and the maybe-doctor looks like he’s used to Richie’s antics and, while seemingly fond, is teflon to them. There’s some pleading on Richie’s end and eventually the maybe-doctor regards Richie knowingly before surrendering a chart. Eddie’s brain has extreme difficulty coming to terms with the absurd image of Richie looping a stethoscope around the collar of his hideous shirt. After scribbling on a dry erase board with a marker, he beckons Eddie forward with two fingers, mouthing _come on._ Eddie doesn’t move from his chair and the lines in Eddie’s expression of dumbfoundedness must show in seventy-two point boldface type because over the din of the ER, Richie yells out, “Oh my god! I’m a real doctor, I swear! Get over here!”

That’s how Eddie is invited into a tiny room that’s dimly lit and is probably exclusively designated for storing supplies. Sweeping the place with a look, he stocks its furnishings. The shelves of boxes, a cart and stool that both run on wheels, and a cot that’s been shoved against the far wall. There’s a standing tray that a small cordless lamp sits on. 

“Our finest accommodations, sir,” Richie says, closing the door behind them. Belatedly, thoughtfully, he asks, “You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”

“No but I am averse to shady broom closets that probably resemble a half-finished paint job under a black light.”

“Gee for someone who hates hospitals, you sure are knowledgeable about what goes down during the night shift.”

“Seriously, what is this?” Eddie asks. He’d fold his arms before his chest if he didn’t have to keep one elevated. Which fair, would be very soccer mom of him. He gives a little huff. “What are we doing here?”

“I didn’t want you to have a panic attack in the waiting area so I pulled some strings.” There’s shy shuffling, an adjusting of his glasses even though they haven’t slipped at all. “If it doesn’t bother you, I’ll treat you. Is this a problem?”

Eddie softens. Richie’s doing him a favor, making a kind gesture. He shouldn't be an ungrateful jerk about it. “Are you going to get in trouble for skipping me ahead?”

Richie sniffs a laugh and perks up. “Smuggling you in here is subterranean on my list of offenses. And I just got off a double shift so I do what I want. It’s really no big deal. No one’s lined up for this room.” Richie rifles through the drawers of the cart, withdrawing items and then placing them on the cot. He grabs some sort of kit and snaps on a pair of gloves. “Pop a squat, handsome.”

Eddie manages to situate himself on the edge of the cot without losing balance, or disturbing the collection that Richie’s put together. When Richie is standing a foot in front of him, he asks, “How about flirting with your patients, where does that rank? Isn’t that against the rules?”

“Technically I’m off the clock and you weren’t supposed to be my patient.” Richie’s grin of mischief sets off a wash of sparks under Eddie’s skin. He straps a blood pressure cuff on Eddie’s uninjured arm. One of those newer ones that squeeze on their own and impatiently beep once they’ve choked your limb enough. “A perfect 120 over 80. Why am I not surprised?”

Next, his fingers curl around Eddie’s wrist and he keeps time.

“I like your watch,” Eddie comments, at a loss for what else to say.

“Thanks. It was a Christmas gift from a patient. Ironic with it being a little girl vampire but I love it. And it works. Your vitals are normal.” Laughing, he adds, “You still look so mind-blown. It’s hilarious.”

“Sorry. You’re just very—” The nearness of Richie, the intimacy of him checking Eddie’s pulse knocks most words out of his clumsy mouth. Only one persists. “Unexpected.”

“I know, I know,” Richie says faux woefully, like he’s heard this a million times over. Head bent, he hides his face as he jots down notes on Eddie’s chart. “I work in the land of demigods and I am but a mere Gumby.”

“That’s not what I meant.” At Richie’s fixed stare of disbelief, Eddie continues, “Not entirely anyway. Today was lousy until about an hour ago is what I’m saying.”

Richie looks as flayed open as Eddie feels, like he’s also silently begging the questions: _who are you_ and _where have you been all my life_ and _fuck, why do you make me so stupid?_

“Yeah, I get that.”

Eddie is rewarded a few inches on him when Richie wheels the stool and tray near. He sits and switches on the lamp. “Okay. Extend your arm.”

Doing as instructed, Eddie stretches his forearm on the tray. He’s emotionally compromised by the warm cradle of Richie’s hand under his, the sight of him carefully unwrapping the soiled cheesecloth. And will Eddie ever hear or think of that word without a happy clench in his stomach?

The cut is a sharp slash of violent cherry red. Richie inspects it with long fingers meandering along the intersecting lines of Eddie’s palm like he’s touring landmarks. “No debris and it’s a clean cut so that’s great. It'll be minimal scarring if any. You did a good job with keeping direct pressure on this. All of your nerves are intact but it’s still pretty deep. You’re gonna need two layers of sutures. Can you open your hand a bit more for me? Flex your fingers.”

Eddie hisses as the pain flares new again. 

“I’m gonna give you a local anesthetic.”

“I hate needles.”

“I’m the best stick in the ER. You’ll barely feel it, I promise.”

“That better not just be a corny ass line,” Eddie replies, gaze trained on the syringe Richie’s prepped.

“You’ve got the battle-ready stare of a legendary warrior,” Richie says. “Your eyebrows are furious caterpillars of determination and resilience. You can do this.”

“Don’t mock me, Richie,” Eddie replies, low and angry.

With the illuminating aid of the lamp light, Eddie can spot the different colors in Richie’s dark eyes when they flick up, the woodsy stains of teak and mahogany, fragments of hazel. He doesn’t see anything except those colors and complete honesty. “Trust me, I’m not. Close your eyes for me. Think of the happiest thing.”

“The happiest thing?”

“You know that part in Peter Pan when he teaches Wendy and her brothers to fly?”

“I get the reference but wasn’t fairy dust also needed?”

Dryly and transparently unimpressed, Richie tells him, “I’m fresh out. It’s make-believe, Eddie. Stop being so square. Use your imagination and close ‘em.”

Inside his eyelids, ushering a happy thought to the forefront doesn’t require imagination but the reflection takes piecing together all the same. The thing is that it’s been years since he’s even scraped the surface of the memory. The second semester of his freshman year of high school, when he had hauled up the courage to try out for the track team. He remembers bursting off the line and streaking fast like something celestial, the whips of the wind burning his face as he raced the curve of the school’s football field. He’d done well, been good enough for the coach to pull him aside and offer him a permission slip his mom found hours later. Absently, Eddie feels a brush against the ridge of his knuckles. When the needle comes it’s not the horrible sting that Eddie expects but soft pinches, there and gone, like a companion caressing the postcard-memory with him and catching the bittersweet, muted wince of its four edges.

The blur of that sweet spring day clears into Richie’s getaway smile when he resurfaces. It slays Eddie on the spot but not a bit of happiness is loss. 

“Told ya.”

“That you did.”

Richie proceeds to bathe the surface of his palm with iodine and drapes it in sterile blue before picking up a needle holder. 

To help ignore the fact that Richie is running purple stitches through the layer underneath his skin, Eddie stares at his bowed forehead and the few curls that flop before it. He’s endeared by those curls, that distinguished forehead. 

God, he’s fucked. 

Several minutes into his fixation, Eddie prods softly, “Why did you choose pediatrics, Doctor Tozier?”

“Ooh,” Richie scales, mimicking the electric shock of a chill. “Oh boy. Not to be a terrible cliche but my title in your mouth definitely does something for me. You are more than welcome to feel that out some more. Frequently.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes and waits for Richie to go on. 

“Rebellion is the why. I had ADHD as a kid and my doctor didn’t know what to do with me. He’d blame me, told me to cool it with the twin dangers of video games and candy. Which I hardly got anyway because my dad’s a retired dentist. So at one appointment I called the guy a hack and told him that I could be a fucking better doctor than he was. And I was stubborn enough to do it. I mean, I sympathize with him a bit now because cases can be difficult and it was the early eighties. We know more now. But he was still an asshole. Kids need advocates." Richie looks both adorable and like someone Eddie could very well come to adore when he’s earnest. "Not to mention, I’m a child at heart.”

“And mind,” Eddie offers with little heat.

“They do appreciate my voices,” Richie agrees. 

“Your Alvin the Chipmunk isn’t awful,” Eddie admits. 

“High praise coming from you.” 

“It would’ve been nice to have a doctor like you around when I was younger.”

Deftly and routine-perfected, Richie switches over to black thread and starts weaving Eddie’s wound closed. “What? A hot stud?”

“Fun. Understanding. They weren’t bad. And I do mean they. My mother had a habit of getting fed up with one doctor and switching me over to another. They all pitied me, I could tell. It was bad enough buying into all of the bullshit my mom told me, believing something was wrong with me. But it was mostly embarrassing.” Eddie plunges in and shares secrets he’s never told anyone but his therapist. “I think she was lonely. She'd trap the two of us together. She’d keep me inside the house if the weather went slightly below freezing. Wouldn’t let me out during most of the summer because she thought I’d get a heatstroke and die. I’d miss so much school during flu season and I’d get behind in my class work every year. God she would’ve swaddled me in bubble wrap if she could have gotten away with it.”

“She sounds like a real piece of work.”

“Yeah, she was. She passed away a few years ago.”

This time Richie doesn’t offer apologies and Eddie is grateful for it. 

They recede into a comfortable quiet until Eddie picks up on a melody that Richie starts humming. 

“Is that Foreigner?”

Confirming, Richie sings with more clarity and off-key, “I’m hot blooded, check it and see, got a fever of one hundred and three.” 

Pressurized by an onslaught of affection, Eddie cracks up. For the remainder of the patch-up Richie sings bastardized rock hits that can vaguely be called medically adjacent if one is extremely generous. 

After Richie administers a tetanus shot, they’re all done. However, when he strokes his thumb over the bandaged injection site, the gesture pierces Eddie clean through and they don't feel done at all. 

“You’re a goddamn sweetheart, aren’t you?”

“Why thanks, Spaghetti.”

Eddie makes noises of physical disgust. “You really couldn’t help yourself, huh?”

Richie strips off his gloves and trashes them. “Byproduct of my genius. C’mon, I hung onto that one for a while.”

“Yeah, I would hate to see you hurt yourself with all that restraint.”

“Well I’m a doctor. I’d be able to fix it,” Richie says with small laugh that wanes into perfect seriousness. “So you have to keep that hand dry. A plastic bag should do it. Don’t forget to come back to get the stitches taken out in about two weeks.”

It’s the first time that Richie’s been strictly professional and things suddenly feel warp-speed. Slipping fast out of Eddie’s grasp. Like almost every other romantic attempt he’s made. Except he wants to give this one a try, to see it work because there’s something real here, something that can be tended to and grow if given the opportunity. Eddie searches Richie’s face to recapture those glimpses from before, of that unveiled secret. That you can have it all—someone who understands you, who it feels good to be around, who could maybe make you laugh for the rest of your life. Eddie’s gaze flits over Richie’s face and he realizes this isn’t slipping out of his hands. That Richie took a chance by sitting next to Eddie and Richie is putting the ball in his court.

Eddie runs with it and takes off in a sprint by deleting the space between him and Richie at long last. He’s careful of his injured hand but he’s not hesitant with much else. He gathers Richie by his stupid collar, yanking him down and inching up. Tasting him between sighs of relief, over and over again, Eddie is thorough. He licks past the teased overbite and sucks that top lip that never stops curling. He chases Richie’s hitches of breath and knows that Richie had something cinnamon not too long ago. He knows how his stubble tickles depending on the angle of attack. Eddie peppers the line of his jaw to the jumps in his neck, tucks into his collarbone. Below Richie’s ear, Eddie noses in. He inhales his fill of skin, spice, and the faint scent of laundry soap. 

“I wouldn’t,” Eddie whispers when Richie's arms come around his middle, all warm and heavy. “You know, forget. I am a square so I wouldn’t forget. But maybe you could remind me? I’m not good at this, Richie. I’ve been on exactly six dates since coming out and I’m the loser who cut his hand open on a miserable Friday night in his kitchen and had to get his neighbor to drive him to hospital because he has no one—”

Richie pulls back. He catches and kills Eddie’s next words with the nudge and command of his mouth. He drags Eddie in closer by the hip and that point of contact stays when they ease to a sweet and lazy ending. Low and private, hushing as though he has a specific guidebook in his head on how to get Eddie’s nerves to flatline, Richie says, “I like that loser. Don’t talk shit about that guy.”

Eddie tugs lightly on the ends of Richie’s hair, brings him down so he can finally press his lips to that distinguished forehead. He lingers, stamps a _hey there_ while tracing the length of Richie’s nape with curious fingers. Down, down, down. He hopes that one day he’ll get to use both hands on Richie’s shoulders. They’re so filled out and Eddie can’t get over them. “So any chance you wanna go out with that guy?”

“Uh duh. Desperately,” Richie rasps out. He hurries another kiss between them. He speaks and grins where that kiss was. “Dinner?”

A thrill mounts all the way to Eddie’s lungs, sparing no more than a soft exhale for his answer to ride on. He hugs his thumb to the corner of Richie’s mouth, dips it down to his chin. He’d bet he’ll have a thing for every single part of Richie. “Yeah sure.”

“Tonight? You still have my license and I’ll need you in the car if you intend to keep it. I can take you home? And you have got to be starving. We could grab a bite on the way. I’d really like a date with you before your senses rejoin the Union.”

“Richie, didn’t you just tell me you pulled a double shift?"

"I'm fine."

"I don't know, you’re looking a little drag-ass.”

“It’s crazy how turned on I am by your bluntness. Your cutting remarks are like sexual napalm to me.”

“Freak.”

Richie hums. “You’re not wrong. No worries though. If I evolve into a homicidal maniac, there’s always the fucking can opener.”

Eddie smiles. “Shut up.”

“That’s essentially a yes in our love language.”

“I can barely stand you.”

Richie presses the chestpiece of his stethoscope to Eddie’s tell-tale heart. After about a dozen beats take place in a frighteningly short span, he calls Eddie out. “Liar.”

**fin**

**Author's Note:**

> If you're a Seinfeld diehard you may have noticed that Eddie's address is that of one Elaine Benes. I'm not a Seinfeld diehard, just too lazy to come up with my own NY address.


End file.
